The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1887-01-30
A BIG COLONY OF "SCABS. "
GRAPHIC PICTURE OF SCENES ON THE
LACKAWANNA COAL DUCKS.

How the Company Feed aud shelter the
Men who Have Taken the Places of
the Strikers. Revolt Against Pork
Inspector Lange, GeDerasissimO of n
Layge Force of Guards.
Police Inspector Lange sat in his Office
at the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western
coal docks, when SUNDAY MORNING News
reporter called. on him yesterday.
Practically wall as high as that
which surrounded China in the
olden time has shut in these docks
from the rest of tho world since the great
coal strikes began, and it occurred to the
reporter that little Information as to the
colony imprisoned there woul1 be interest
ing to its readers. So he sought Inspector
Lange, and every opportunity for observa-
ton was put at his command. The In
spector is generalissimo of all the forces
at TIE dock. The city police, the specials,
andEhe Pinkertons are all at his command.
though the Pinkertons have their own
captain and line of military officers
When the ragged and hungry mob Of
ssscabs" was imported across the river to
take the places of the regular hands, they
hadn't the smallest notion of the manner
in which the work they had been selected
for was TO be done, and Assistant
Superintendent Griffith with Detectives
Harvey and Lobstein. and the train hands
and even the telegraph operators had to
turn in and instruct them how to run the
cars on the trestles, to open the slides,
change the windlasses that control the
shutes, and to load and trim the coal
They had to go through the manual with
each gang that arrived to do duty at the
several docks at which coal is received and
unloaded. The gangs had not been long
at work before it was discovered that there
were radical differences between them T.
was noticed that they divided off into
squads, and that when there was not war
between the two factions, there was an
interminable gable among themselves in
each faction. One of the factions was
NJ ade up of lean Italians; the other of
starving Hungarian Hebrews. Tne cause
1 of all the parrot-like discussion in one of
\ the gangs was revealed by the sickness of
one of the men. He had been accustomed
to nothing but maccaroni; and a taste of
meat that was given to him nearly killed
him. His compatriots had to roll and tum-
! BILE the meat out of him to save his life.
| Then they let the foremen know that they
couldn't eat meat; that it was too rich for
chem, and their diet was reduced. TIL e
occasion of the awful gabblc in the
other faction was made known later
when gang of excited Hungarians seized
\ several barrels of pork that stood on the
docks and hurled them into the river.
| They turned ima9 sdiateiy from this work
1 of destruction and made wordy assault OF
the Inspector.
"We eatee no porkee No goode. We
no workee with porkee."
They seemed to hold him responsible for
| this mistake in their feeding, and disposed
to avenge their wrongs upon him.
! STAND back" he shouted, 'sor I'll drive
| you into the river"
| He called reserve and drove them to
one corner of the docks, and then they
made peace with him. Of course it is i'm
possible to house two factions with two
such widely different stomachs; and two
steamers are provided to accommodate
them. The Italians are on the Frederick
De Barry, the Hungarians on the TucKa-
hoe Temporary hunks have been made
! in the holds of the two steamers, and every
night there is hog like scramble between
! the jabbering mobs for the hunks. Those
who miss the hunks have to sleep on the
floors Their dinners are served to them
on the decks of the steamers. Rough boards
| resting on wooden horses serve as tables.
and food is set before them on tin plates
! The News nam saw the noisy and dirty and
ragged crowd rush for the tables when the
dinner whistle summoned them from the
docks. They were black and ragged, aud
their hair hung around their heads wit h
suggestive uncleanliness. They piled in
like pigs at troth, almost oyerturning the
tables in their eagerness to get at them,
and Stopping their food all over the pine
boards in their voracious grab for the
plates. The Italians slammed the rice and
maccaroni down their gallets with knife
and fork and fist. The Hungarians were
not more decorous in disposing of their
plate full of food.
The Inspector says that they are the
flthiest lot of people he has ever had deal
ipgs with. Oae of them lost $11 the other
day, and the Inspector almost had his
breath taken away by the stencil that asssil-
ed his nostrils when he searched the rest of
the gang for the missing money.
The strikers are eternally playing jokes
on the strikers. The other day they circn-
lated story around the New fork slunis
that many of the ''scabs" had been thrown
into the river. Two pretty Italian women
in mourning accompanied by two men
came to the docks post haste, and would
not be satisfied till the Inspector produced
the supposed dead men. He wondered
how two s7eh pretty women could hug and
cry over two such miserable specimens of
manhood as came in response to called
numbers. For it is only by their numbers
that these namelesa fellows are known.
They are all tagged with tin like Lorillard's
tobacco packages.
The noisy and dirty crowd is walled in,
from possible attack, by the police and the
Pinkerton's and crowd of specials from
Buffalo. Pinkerton's agency receives 81 a
day for each man. He receives SIS per
week from the Plnkertons the year around.
The guards of all kinds sleep in cars on
mattresses laid between the car seats. The
seats have been taken sslt of soma of the